Argues that the California Supreme Court's landmark decision, Serrano v. Priest, crippled the Tiebout system by divorcing local property wealth from school spending.

Questions the rationale behind judicial review of school finance schemes adopted by legislatures that are influenced by "property-rich" communities, and examines voter preference in the failed 1992 gubernatorial campaign of a New Hampshire legislator who ran on a property tax and school reform...

Tiebout’s "vote with your feet" model dispensed with political behavior in local government. The present article offers a political model borrowed from corporate finance. Local governments are viewed as municipal corporations whose shareholders are homeowners and whose collective property...

Discusses fiscal decentralization and economic development in developed and developing countries. Explores historical trends in fiscal centralization and puts them in context of the developing countries.

In this paper, I want to review this evolution of the theory of fiscal federalism and offer some thoughts on the implications of these new views for the structure and functioning of federal fiscal systems. This will provide an opportunity to draw on the comparative experience of certain...

Analyzes the impact of property tax reform in Pittsburgh (1979-1980), which dramatically increased the tax rate applied to land (but not structures). Explores the impact of this tax reform on the economic development of the city.

Uses aggregate time-series data to explore state and local budgetary responses to cuts in federal grant programs. Finds that the "flypaper effect" is two-way (spending falls in response to cuts by about the same magnitude as it rises in response to grant increases).

Economic competition among governments, making use of both fiscal and regulatory policy instruments, is the subject of great concern on both sides of the Atlantic, for fear that it gives rise to a "race to the bottom" resulting in levels of public services that are too low. This paper explores...